I know I shouldn't be, but I can't help feeling sorry for ex Panama Strongman (and then friend of the US) General Manuel Noriega.
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| General Manuel Noriega US Prison |
I mean, as Dictators go he was small fry, which doesn't of course lessen his crimes (drug running, murder, corruption and embezzlement are some of the charges), but in the scheme of these things he was more Presidenti Mustachio rather than Saddam Hussein.
However, he just goes from jail to jail, and sentence to sentence, while others of a similar ilk have just lived in exile. Now aged 77 he has already spent more than 20 years in prisons in France and the United States, and has now been returned to Panama where he's expected to stay in prison until he dies.
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| 77 yr old General Noriega |
He has never once been sentenced to death, but the culmination of all these prison terms effectively means that he will die in prison ... probably not undeserved, but justice has to always be seen to be done, and this can start to look less like 'justice' and more like 'vengeance'.
Update: He was diagnosed with a brain tumour in March 2017, and suffered complications during surgery, and died two months later.
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